| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Shall oft with gentle murmur lull to sleep,
While the leaf-dresser beneath some tall rock
Uplifts his song, nor cease their cooings hoarse
The wood-pigeons that are your heart's delight,
Nor doves their moaning in the elm-tree top.
TITYRUS
Sooner shall light stags, therefore, feed in air,
The seas their fish leave naked on the strand,
Germans and Parthians shift their natural bounds,
And these the Arar, those the Tigris drink,
Than from my heart his face and memory fade.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: concerts. Even Knowles, who had not visited the hospital for
weeks, relented and came back, moody and grum. He brought Kitts
with him, and started him on talking of how they kept Christmas
in Ohio on his mother's farm; and the poor soul, encouraged by
the silence of two of his auditors, and the intense interest of
Lois in the background, mazed on about Santa-Claus trees and
Virginia reels until the clock struck twelve, and Knowles began
to snore.
Christmas was coming. As he stood, day after day, looking out of
the gray window, he could see the signs of its coming even in the
shop-windows glittering with miraculous toys, in the market-carts
 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: twinkling of an eye. Should he go on, and care nothing?
He could not bring himself to do that. Beyond a politic
wish to remain unknown, there suddenly arose in him
now a sense of shame at the possibility that his
attractive young wife, who already despised him, should
despise him more by discovering him in so mean a
condition after so long a time. He actually blushed
at the thought, and was vexed beyond measure that
his sentiments of dislike towards Weatherbury should
have led him to dally about the country in this way.
But Troy was never more clever than when absolutely
 Far From the Madding Crowd |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: worked at cotton-picking, they would doubtless altogether make more
than ten dollars a day.''
One of the child laborers revealed the economic advantage--to the
parents--in numerous progeny: ``Us kids most always drag from forty to
fifty pounds of cotton before we take it to be weighed. Three of us
pick. I'm twelve years old and my bag is twelve feet long. I can
drag nearly a hundred pounds. My sister is ten years old, and her bag
is eight feet long. My little brother is seven and his bag is five
feet long.''
Evidence abounds in the publications of the National Child Labor
Committee of this type of fecund parenthood.[4] It is not merely a
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